Compression
by transmigratory
Summary: AU. Feeling trapped in the confines of Death City and its antiquated, greasy, checker-floored diners and red-carpeted abandoned concert halls that remind them of only their failures, they pack up Maka's old Ford Taurus and hit the road to nowhere and everywhere. Mostly against her will. But crappy motels and a couple hundred miles can change a lot between two people. Soul/Maka.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **not mine. never will be. the end.

Also, lyrics are from the Lumineers' song "Stubborn Love."

**Author's Note: **I've finally decided to start an AU. I've had this idea for Soul and Maka for a long time and finally started this first chapter here and wrote an outline so we'll see how it goes. I don't know why I started this with my spring semester starting up on Thursday and with my part-time job overwhelming me, but I find sanctuary in writing so, though sporadic they may be, I will update it as much as I can. Chapters will vary in size: some will be smaller and some might be huge. I don't know yet. Just like you never quite know how a roadtrip's gonna go. So enjoy the ride.

(sorry about the puns)

_It's better to feel pain_

_than nothing at all  
_-

* * *

_When I told him I wanted to write a story, he asked me, "What's the fun in that? Wouldn't you rather live one?"_

_And I honestly never thought of that._

_Not until he dragged across a few__ states to really dig the question in._

_But I guess I shouldn't start here. I should start at the beginning… like every story, whether it's been written or not._

* * *

"Soul?"

She toes the door open a crack, and throws a sharp spear of light into his room that appears to puncture his bleary eyes.

"What?" he groans. "What could you possibly want at…" He glances at his too-bright alarm clock. "4 AM," he deadpans at the realization.

"Just reminding you to buy new milk later, since you drank all of the last one straight out of the carton." Maka takes the empty one, soggy and floppy like the skin of a rotten orange, and kicks it part-way into the dark. She knows that if it lands somewhere in his mountains of dirty laundry he'll probably not be able to tell the difference between it and a white T-shirt, but figures it's not her problem he decides to live in a self-built fortress of unwashed sweatpants and hoodies.

"And you are telling me _now _because…?" He rolls over in the bed to face her with unrestrained irritation, two sanguine slits peering at her beneath black linen sheets, like a serpent she poked in its den.

"I'm going to work and I won't be back until 2, so I kinda had to remind you now. Sorry to wake you." She flattens out her white apron and turns around, slowly shuts the door before he decides to strike.

"Wait!"

She halts mostly because she is startled by the sudden change of strength in his groggy, gnarled voice.

"Didn't you just get back from work a few hours ago?"

She nods.

"And then when you got home instead of sleeping you started studying your accounting stuff, right?"

Another nod. A fatigue like a deep chill she can't shake crawls into her bones.

"Have you slept?"

"Unlike you," Maka retorts, "I don't sleep as much as a cat in order to function."

"You're avoiding the actual question, which means you're exhausted and you don't wanna admit it to me or even yourself."

She's not positive when he left his safe cavern of blankets, but now he stands mere inches behind her, and then, his warm breath seeps across the nape of her neck and she knows he's too close for comfort without having to look.

Her blood boils when she becomes aware that his movements are so fluid and calculated by nature that she didn't hear him approach her, and the drowsiness that made her bones heavy moments before burns away like fog in the afternoon light.

She pushes him away, though not hard enough to knock him down. He's too sturdy for that, she knows. She also knows that's why she's so drawn to him – he's a rock, her rock, as much as she loathes to admit it.

Soul remains where she shoves him. "Fine. Go. Idiot."

But sometimes the rock crumbles over time, erodes by all the wind and rain she coasts against him with her fits of anger and harsh words.

"Okay" is all that comes out of her chapped lips as she slams his door behind her and makes her way to the diner in her cold, leather-seated car.

He slumps to the floor in defeat, tired simply from watching her overwork herself to death, and stares blankly at the carcass of milk that soaks through one of his favorite shirts.

"Damn it, Maka," he mumbles. "Damn it all to hell."

* * *

"Maka, are you sure you're fine to work? I'm certain someone else could have covered for-"

"I'm fine, Marie, really," she says as she pours more mud-shaded coffee into a customer's porcelain mug without looking, places sweet 'n' low packets and creamers for the regular as he flicks mindlessly through his newspaper. She wonders what he reads about every single day in a small town that never changes much except its direction of wind.

"But you look really tired, honey," her boss murmurs with such genuine concern that Maka feels an uncomfortable melding of guilt and fatigue reside in her heart and tie knots in the strings as it knocks away against its will, beneath tired muscle and bone.

"I always look like that lately." She knows it, too. She feels like her eyes have been rubbed raw as she blinks away some of the redness forming at the edges. She senses it in the way her shoulders slump like someone is pushing on them. Maka feels a lot like people are pushing her these days and she's not sure what to do about it other than to work overtime in both her part-time job and her studies and try to forget it all.

"Your break's in fifteen minutes. And don't think I won't know if you try to skip it," Marie hisses with a glare sharp enough to cut the steel counter top.

Maka gulps and nods.

Her boss smiles, an eerie contrast to her deadly leer, and then returns to her office behind the kitchen to resume calculating the profit the diner garnered the day before.

She checks her watch to be sure she leaves for her break on time in fear of the repercussions, then pivots to fill another of her customer's chipped mugs. As she looks up in response to another client waving her over for a refill from across the restaurant, she sees a familiar mop of long red hair outside and nearly loses it.

"_Maka, you know papa loves you and mama the most, right?"_

Next to the crimson-tinged hair is blonde-streaked that's entirely unfamiliar to her in every way, the way a road she's never been down with a million twists and turns is unfamiliar. And an emptiness fills her, the kind of vacancy she would find in a movie theater on a cold Sunday night.

"Papa?" she murmurs aloud. And she knows on the surface she's twenty-three, but beneath that is a six year old girl who knows the strike of betrayal by someone she loves for the very first time who dominates the adult.

"_Of course, Papa."_

"Miss? My coffee?"

She thinks of a counselor's office that has a green color scheme and a woman who smells like she showers in perfume instead of water, but the sort of perfume that makes her eyes water and her nose fold backward and crinkle in disgust.

"Excuse me, Miss!"

She clutches the handle of the coffee pot tighter, and then she thinks of a blank sheet of paper with three circles on it.

"_Now, Maka, I'd like you to fill in these circles with faces that express how you feel."_

She remembers three sad faces, right in a row. Tear streaks in erasable pencil streaming down the pages week after week.

"What can I do to get some service around here? Jeez!"

He grabs her hand.

There's a sound of smashing and she's not sure where it comes from, and then she realizes it: she threw the coffee pot over the booth of the noisy customer and it smashes with an impressive bang against the plexiglass right where her father and his flavor of the week stand outside, out of reach and touch. The obsidian liquid sloshes down the window like old snow melting and then her vision is the color of coffee and she's falling, falling like the pieces of shattered, sharp glass straight to the checkered floor.

* * *

Soul slides across the red-leather seat from where she lays, asleep at last, in the diner no less on a Tuesday morning. Relief and heartburn fills him all at once as he observes her supine form cradled in a stained tablecloth for a blanket.

"So, how did this happen?" he asks as Marie folds her skirt beneath her and plops down next to him with what looks like an added wrinkle on her face from the events of the morning.

She sighs, quiet like the hiss of the still-boiling coffee pots, and places her head in her hands to hide beneath her wavy blonde hair. "Doing too much overtime, as you know," she starts, "and I think the last straw was her seeing her father with his newest... lady-friend walking down the street."

He grimaces, pushes the swelling anger in his gut down before it creates a monster of him that unleashed would rain perhaps too much terror and bloodshed on her unsuspecting father. "That bastard. He's gonna destroy her."

"Not as long as you're around, Soul."

A warmth rests on his clenched hand and he turns to face his best friend's boss like he would a fellow mourner at a funeral.

_Don't think of Spirit in a casket, don't think of Spirit in a casket..._

"So I'd like to ask for a favor," she says so suddenly and seriously he's thrown for a loop. He doesn't shrug off her hand on his as she near-mumbles the proposition. "Take Maka away from her for a while."

He raises an eyebrow. "And how do you suppose I do that? You know how she is. She won't leave here, especially with her dedication to not only this job but her prospect future one."

"Stein and I will give Maka an advance payment. If she complains, just tell her it's from all the birthdays and holidays we've missed as her godparents over the years or something."

"But-"

"Stop. Besides, she'll be passed out for a while longer. Take this opportunity to go home, get some stuff, and beat it for a month or two." She squeezes his hand, desperation seeps into her voice like butter into warm toast. "Please. It's for the best."

"Please tell me I get an advance payment for the dictionary beatings I'm going to have to endure."

"Free healthcare from Stein?"

He shudders. "Nevermind. Forget I asked."

* * *

She wakes to sounds she's heard before in a very different setting: a squeaky car bumping over potholes, leather creaking and antiquated air conditioning whirring and brushing the hair away from her face like a cool, gentle hand. She smells too-sweet green apple air freshener her mother sent her one year for Christmas and when she hears jazz overtones she knows something's not right about all of this as a mix.

"Oh, you're awake." He clears his throat, and she suspects from his shaking, trembling voice that he had hoped she'd be asleep the whole ride.

"What did you do?" She feels whatever ties her stomach to the rest of her body unfurl and it floats like she's on a rollercoaster, and she feels terribly, terribly sick. She rises too quickly and it takes her a minute to become cognizant of her surroundings as her brain repositions itself properly in her spinning, aching head. "Why are you driving my car? Where are we going?" Maka's eyes are as wide as planets and he grips the steering wheel tighter in fear. He can't escape. They're trapped.

She iron-grips his shoulder and he's not sure why but his mind flashes to bad car accidents and ambulances. "Soul? Answer me."

He shakes his head. Sweat drips from every pore on his face. He's spouting like Old Faithful.

"Soul Eater Evans." Her voice is like black ice – he can't see it but he knows it's dangerous, very, very dangerous.

_Stretchers. Medflights._

"Look, Maka-"

"Just spit it out! Now!" She fumbles for a book, a big book, or maybe one with spikes instead of pages to bash his head open with.

"You passed out at the diner and Marie wanted you away from that town so we're going on a roadtrip with an advance payment from your godparents and I thought your Taurus would be safer than my motorcycle!"

"So you kidnapped me."

"Justifiably."

"How can you possibly justify that!" she shouts.

"You almost assaulted a customer."

"He was-"

"You haven't slept in days."

"I have a lot of-"

"We're all concerned, damn it, and you need a break! Will you just listen to someone other than yourself for once?" He screeches to an abrupt halt on the side of the road and the tires squealing sound a lot like his voice just did and her heart beats too heavy in her chest at the smoldering look he broils her with.

A long silence envelops them like a fog as they sit in the breakdown lane of some highway number she swears she's never heard of, and that's when it comes to her: she's never left that godforsaken city in her whole life. She's never seen this desert or any of the others that are bound to come after it. All she knows is that greasy diner and her schoolwork and Soul. She could be blindfolded and walk through the city and still know where she was at all times.

He counts to ten a few times in his head before he tries to speak again. "Look, Maka-"

"I'm sorry." She grips the frilly end of her uniform skirt so tight her knuckles turn ghost-white. "I'm so sorry, Soul." And when the tears drip onto her hands he crushes her in a too-tight hug, because he's not sure what else to do but he knows he wants to plug the dam before it breaks.

"It's ok. I'm sorry. I should've waited for you to wake up instead of just hauling you out with me."

"No, it's all right. I understand why you did it. I wouldn't have listened otherwise."

He pulls back, and his sanguine stare matches the intensity of her viridian one.

She reaches over to take his hand in her tear-coated one. "Maybe I do need this." She laces their fingers and they fit neatly like shoestrings. "Maybe we _both_ do."

He runs his free hand through his hair and laughs. "Yeah. I think we're both goin' crazy back there."

They both laugh a little at the truth of the confession, and turn to the road before them at the same time, glittering with golden-brown sand and useless gas station and food signs.

"Okay," Maka says. "I'll go, on one condition."

He grins. "Anything?"

"Since you kidnapped me, I have the right to the radio."

"You have _got _to be kidding me."

_The opposite of love's_

_indifference  
_-


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: **Do not own _Soul Eater. _Etc.

Also do not own the lyrics of the song "Amsterdam" by the band Imagine Dragons.

**Author's Note: **It took me a little longer than intended because my spring semester started and dragged me under for a while, but I finally got this out. I have no beta so I proofread everything myself but I'm only human, so if you see a glaring mistake of any sort please let me know! I appreciated all the follows and the review from Queenofthefanfiction! n.n I hope you enjoy.

I may also change the rating of this story but I'm not sure yet. I know how intense is these days about ratings and stuff.

_Your time will come if you wait for it, if you wait for it  
It's hard, believe me... I've tried_

* * *

The city her old car strides and coughs slowly into reminds her so much of home: small businesses run by families who never stepped foot outside this place since the appearance of the Little Dipper overhead, twenty-four hour diner in the center of town, children comfortable as they stroll around in the shallows of the night, their innocence preserved by the safety outside of their four walls. Only difference that she observes is the addition of a chain motel the highway nearby makes a necessity. Safe as the town appears, she's certain there'll be just as many nomad strangers as there are citizens.

"Maka." Soul's voice sounds like it's rubbed raw by sandpaper, gravel. She tries to ignore the odd twinge of butterflies in her gut at the semi-sweet drowsiness in his tone.

"Mmm?" She gets up and stretches as far as her stick-thin arms will go, wipes the dream-tears that form as she yawns.

"Do you want to eat first, or just go to the motel?" His hands haven't left the leather steering wheel in a while, and he wonders if they might be stuck there.

Her jade-slathered eyes flutter toward the window. "Food," she murmurs like a hungry child.

He catches her unaware with the shark-sized grin he plasters at the sound of the word. "I am so glad that's your answer."

She laughs, a nap-weakened giggle, and messes with tightening her loosened pigtails, and he imagines just taking out those green elastics instead and running fingers through the strands as soft as soot and sighs.

He'd much rather be deep into scrambled eggs and hashbrowns than love but knows it's the only thing these days his heart orders.

Soul parks crooked, and after a half-hearted argument sunken by daydreams and too-long shuteye they enter the gaudy diner where they seat themselves by a cracked-glass window. She gazes at one corner that looks like a spiderweb, a permanent one that'll never catch any flies in its white-fog-shaded grooves.

He grumbles something about her kid-like attention span and prods her with the poorly-laminated menu in the forehead, crinkled like used sheets as she focuses intently on the cracks. "Huh?" she asks as he rolls his ruby-red eyes at her confusion.

"I'll buy. Just pick something out. Avoid the filet mignon, please."

She hums to herself as she skims the short menu. "Surprised you can pronounce that."

His mouth opens but before he can retort the cheery waitress zips over to their greasy, crumb-coated table.

"Can I get you two some coffee?" Before either of them answer, she flips their black-porcelain mugs over and pours just a little below the top for them, drops rippled cream containers and fake sugars on their napkins. "And just let me know when you're ready to order," she continues before she flies off again behind the swinging doors, like she was only an illusion they both conjured.

"Weird girl," Soul mutters. "Weirder than you, and that's saying something."

She takes a sip of her coffee. Black. She ignores his comment. "What's really weird," she says, "is that they sell a lot of alcohol here after nine. Marie would have a hissy-fit if she had to serve beer and Bacardi to our customers."

"You mean, _you _would have a hissy-fit. Prude."

"I drink."

"If you're talking about high school graduation when I tricked you into drinking vodka, then you're lying."

"So you finally admit it." She takes another sip. Louder this time as she sees guilt wrangle with his neutral expression. "Anyway," she continues, "if I've got my papa's liver, I can certainly take alcohol better than anyone I know."

The waitress appears back at their table as if on command. "So what can I get you two?" She pulls out her near-empty pad and clicks her pen, fake smile glued to her lips.

Soul glares a silent challenge at Maka across the table, flashes his ID and rips hers out of her wallet before she can protest. "Two rum and cokes, and a large plate of bacon, please."

* * *

She shudders as the unfamiliar burn of Captain Morgan singes her tongue and her throat as it sloshes down into her raging stomach. She's certain there's more rum than coke in these, though it may just be that this is her second drink and she already feels it too heavily, a haze in her brain that draws back the curtains from her heart.

"So you're telling me," Soul says with a mouthful of bacon, "that the reason that you've been striving all these years to be an accountant is so you can be like your mom that you don't know that well, even if it'll be the most miserable profession ever?"

She nods, fumbles for words like her car keys when they fall into the hole in her jacket pocket. "Yep. Basically."

"Uncool." He takes a gulp of his drink, and she's jealous of how well he holds his liquor and disgusted all at once. "Life's short, you know? Do what you want. Like writing poetry. Haven't you always done that?"

Her cheeks suffuse with a healthy red. Must be the drink. "Yeah. I like haikus, too, a lot. I think it's my passion." She fiddles with the stained spoon, cringes inwardly at her haggard expression reflected in the old silver at the thought of a life hunched over in a cubicle. She breathes on it and shoves it onto her nose, giggles and snorts as Soul does the same. He always saves her from embarrassment by herself by sharing it with her, she realizes. He saves her from too many things. Which is why they sit at some unknown diner in some unknown place beneath the same stars and moon that shine in every town, small or big.

A waitress cuts in over Soul's answer. "Just letting you two honey-buns know that your waitress went home and I'll be taking her place."

Her voice feels like a purr to Maka, content and sweet as pie stuffed with way too many cherries. She flicks her stare toward the replacement and strains to keep her heart and late-night breakfast inside.

"Blair," she spits the name out like the shell of a sunflower seed. And her eyes widen beyond their limits and she stands up immediately, as if someone lit a fire on her booth. Her hands clench into fists and the memories overtake her, a riptide she doesn't anticipate that pulls her in. The odd purple hair, the pumpkin-dappled eyes beneath thick, fake eyelashes dusting rosy cheeks. Nails sharp as steak knives leaving marks on her father's shoulders that her mother leaves everything behind for. Leaves her behind for.

There's a static, palatable tension between the two women that makes Soul squirm and rise from the leather seat himself. "Maka-?" He halts himself as he, too, recognizes the women. "Blair? You live here now?"

Maka throws her leer at him. "You _know _th-this evil succubus!"

"Of course he does!" she coos, oblivious to the girl's rising fury as she throws her arms around his neck, suffocating him into her life raft of a chest. "I was Soul's twenty-first birthday present. You've already grown so much in two years!"

She pictures it against her will, like someone pushes the image into her head through her ears. Her long, mauve nails pinching his tan skin, and they jump into bed and two months later maybe they start holding hands and maybe they go on dates at Italian restaurants and maybe they get married and maybe because of that he forgets Maka, leaves her like everyone else that she ever loved.

She can't breathe. Her voice shifts, a tremor in it. She shakes with the force of it. "Just like every other guy, Soul. I should've known." She wants to blame the alcohol, but she can't. This moment is more sobering than two gallons of water might be. If she thought her father's corruption hurt her, this is far worse – this is not only her best friend but someone her heart wants more than anything to let in. The rage is swallowed by sadness, makes her strong sternum feel like it might snap in two with the weight of being abandoned again. A film of tears blurs her vision and she runs right out the door, slips from Soul's grasp on her wrist, his final attempt to get her to come back so he can apologize and grovel at her feet like he wants to do.

When he hears her sniffle he knows he's done wrong; she's never been a crier unless it's too much for her to handle, and there's not much she can't take. He shrugs out of Blair's python-strengthened chokehold and bolts after Maka, but sees she's already positioned herself in the passenger seat of the car.

They ride to the motel in eerie silence, more smothering than Blair's breasts or Maka's hands around his neck that he waits for the way he might wait for death in the center of a four-way intersection.

* * *

"A single bed?"

It's the first he hears from her since their unspoken spat, and he wishes he hadn't heard it, a voice spiked with spite and poison.

"Maka, plea-"

"I can't believe you." She can't stop herself; this is venom in her bloodstream and bleeding out is the only way to get rid of it for good. "You lost your virginity to the woman that ruined my parents' marriage? Disgusting. I thought you were different – you weren't just every other horny, dick-thinking guy out there and you are!" Maka's voice is beyond her control. He doesn't try to stop her; he knows she wants to thrash until she cools off. His eyes are the most mournful she's ever seen, but she still doesn't want to think that he may not be guilty. "I thought you were different," she says again. "I thought you were my best friend."

"Maka, if I had known that girl ruined your parents' marriage I never would've slept with her and you know it. And I am your best friend, damn it! Why would this change it? It was one time and it definitely never happened again!"

"Men… _pigs_ like you don't care who you sleep with," she says, crosses her arms and turns away.

"What do you mean by that?" He glares, and the sharp sanguine gaze pierces the hair rising on the back of her neck.

"You guys all can ride the village bicycle and get away with it. That's what I mean. Whatever. I like sleeping around, too. Maybe I'll be your thirty-first gift." She huffs, and before he can blink she's out the door.

"What?"

* * *

The pool closed to the public over three hours ago, but today, she doesn't want to abide by the law. Especially since she checked already for security cameras and double-checked to make sure the lobby was empty and the other patrons had their lights off.

The night is other-side-of-the-pillow-cool but still warm enough for her to jump right in and adjust near-immediately. Humans are the fastest animals to adapt, she remembers reading. But she knows she must be an exception to that law of nature because nothing annoys her more than assimilating to the unknown.

But as she drifts underwater she wishes she could sprout gills. And from here she would run and find an ocean and live there, in the reeds and with the infinite fish. The twilit sky looks even better viewed from underwater – like through a blue kaleidoscope or in a dream she has only one foot in. The ripples she creates by sinking seems to scatter the stars and she feels like a god, because with just one wave of her hand she can move the moonlight and the Big Dipper and Soul's concerned face.

She breaches and takes in a clear breath. Her temper snuffed by the butterfly strokes and backflips she approaches him with much less animosity than before, and he muscles visibly relax. Maka leans on the pebbled-dotted edge where he kneels, ignores the scratches the rocks that jut out insert in her chlorine-coated skin.

"What?"

"I'm sorry." And that's it, he knows. He just needs to say that and it'll be all right. She's complicated and simple all at once.

"It's fine," she says. "I know you. I shouldn't have gotten so mad at you. I think I was madder at Blair, at my father, and you just happened to be there." He looks relieved, but she continues. "However, I wish you had told me about your birthday."

He chuckles. "It was Wes's gift, I was drunk, and I was going through a hard time in my life. You know that better than anyone."

"But if you wanted that kind of comfort couldn't you have found someone better?"

"Maka, did you _see _that woman's tits, or do you ignore breasts because you wished you had them?" He jumps out of her way when she reaches for his ankle to drag him in, drown him.

"By the way," she says, sulking at her inability to hook onto him, "I don't sleep around. I just wanted to make you uncomfortable."

"I know."

She rolls her eyes. "How?"

"Because," he replies, his voice deeper than a moment before, "how flustered you get when I do this." His whisper blows across her exposed neck, and she remains still and composed until he kisses his way slowly down to her shoulder.

Maka instinctively rams her fist into his face and swims to the other side of the pool. "Pervert!" She sticks her tongue out and laughs as she watches him fall in from the startle of her punch.

"Not cool." He groans as the water sinks into his clothes and makes him feel a hundred pounds heavier.

"You deserved it."

"True."

* * *

After they both get their long, warm shower in they nestle into the ancient flower-patterned sheets and watch the local news. He cannot keep his legs comfortable the closer she gets; he shifts every so often when he gleans a glimpse of her wet, wavy dishwater blonde hair, and she curls her toes when his hand swipes the tops of hers by accident as he reaches for the remote.

She wonders if she missed puberty in middle school. She can't shake the sensation of his lips on her bare neck and shoulder from over an hour before, like it's been imprinted there for life. "I'm going to bed," she abruptly announces after too many mishaps of fingers touching the tips of his and the urge to brush his untamable white mop of hair. "Don't touch me in my sleep."

"Wouldn't dream of it." He clicks off the television.

"After what happened in the pool you might." She lays a towel for her hair across her extra-long, extra-flat pillow.

He faces the opposite direction of her, but grabs her hand. "Here. If we hold hands you won't have to wonder where mine are, right?" His blush spreads like a wildfire across his face, and he's grateful for the darkness's concealment.

She entwines their fingers, and remembers the sleepovers they had when they were younger in his treehouse. "Yeah."

"And Maka?"

"Mmm?"

"I really am sorry. You know that, right?"

"I wouldn't have forgiven you if I didn't know you were."

"I think we should avoid diners for a while." He laughs.

"Good idea." Her grasp on his hand tightens.

* * *

_But the rain won't fall for the both of us_  
_ The sun won't shine on the both of us_  
_ Believe me when I say, that I wouldn't have it any other way_


	3. Chapter 3

**_Disclaimer: _**Do we even need these at this point? Did we ever need them? Though the lyrics are by the band Family of the Year, and the song is "Hero."

**Author's Note:  
**Ok. It's been... about five months since I updated this story. And I'm really sorry that it took me forever. But I won't type out all of the reasons as to why I got sidetracked from this story, because I'm sure it'll bore you. And I'm sure you're all more than aware that life just gets in the way sometimes of the things you wish you could be doing with things you just have to do.

Anyway, I did write a small backstory for this story that I only posted to my tumblr. My screenname there is Kouriko, and you can find the one-shot for this story under the tag compression. It's not essential to read it for the story. It was just a momentary burst of inspiration idk

Thank you so much for the reviews you have left me for the past two chapters, as well as the favorites and the follows. I think I tried to at least personally respond to most of them, and I'm sorry if I didn't. But again, thank you. Any encouragement I get, spoken or unspoken, is amazing to me. It makes my day. So thank you.

If you ever have a question you would like directly answered, feel free to send me an ask or message on tumblr or whatever and I'd be more than glad to answer it. :)

I know this isn't the best chapter to date (partly because I'm exhausted and partly because I've gone rusty in five months) but I still hope you enjoy it.

* * *

_So let me go  
I don't wanna be your hero}_

* * *

_I learned him easily, like driving the same road a thousand times over. He was obvious where I knew I was not, but he learned me more easily, somehow._

_ In a few days he knew my birthday, how I liked my coffee (a lot of sugar, no cream), favorite color (he still thinks it's navy blue but recently I've been real partial to crimson), and then my goals. My dreams, simple and convoluted. My family, too. How confident I was with total strangers but how much I trembled when presenting to a group of classmates, the color of my hair in every kind of light, how skinny and curveless I am but how happy I am with the way I am shaped._

_ In a few weeks I learned "cool" was his prime descriptive word, and what he aspired to be if he ever learned to grow up._

_ His birthday, his bloodtype (AB), his favorite Al Pacino movie (_The Godfather; _he can quote every scene, including hand motions and facial expressions_). _How precious his motorcycle is to him; how he saved for it all his own for years and years. I knew what he said was one of his deepest secrets; he likes cats more than dogs._

_ I thought I knew him, anyway. But over the next few years, that road I'd been driving for a long time began to change. To twist and to veer sharp to the left and to the right. Shaded in some spots, sunnier in others. _

_ He wasn't just a favorite color (he says recently it's emerald, and I always ask, is that even a real color? And he always just smiles funny at me). He was more. The mysterious guy he strived so hard to be. Wouldn't mention his parents when I asked, and only revealed a little about his brother. He could hum every note of a Charlie Parker song, but if he ever entered a room with a piano I could see him to start to panic, to quiver. The anxiety thick as a quilt, but not nearly as comforting. It was smothering, even to me. _

_ I wished sometimes that I was that complicated. I think if I was more complicated, maybe life would be simpler._

_ But probably not._

* * *

She taps the sun-heated gray leather of the steering wheel, tense as she attempts to avoid every crumbling-tar pocket in the road they cruise down. The song that plays in the background grates on her nerves, but she's too lazy to change it, and so far, it's the only one Soul hasn't grouched at in the last three hours.

Her thoughts echo louder than the repeated beat of the music as the glare puts bright-colored spots at the edges of her vision. She supposes she should have tinted the top of her dashboard window when she had the opportunity.

"Hey."

She breaks from her straight-road stupor and briefly glances at him. "What?"

He points to the pocket behind her seat. "What's in that notebook of yours? You're always carrying it around, and I'm kind of curious."

Maka swerves around another pothole and hisses. "Don't touch it."

He smirks. "Oh… Is that a _diary, _Ms. Albarn?"

"No, but it's still private."

Soul bursts out laughing. "What is it, the beginning to an erotic novel you're writing or something?"

She blushes. "No, but just leave it alone!"

He wiggles his eyebrows. "Is it a love story? I thought you didn't believe in love." He continues to glance at it occasionally, like it's some hidden treasure he's somehow stumbled upon but is just a few inches out of his reach.

"I don't believe in marriage. There's actually a huge difference." She sniffs.

"Explain."

"Well," she says with a sigh, "I've just watched my father destroy one. So part of it is just that… I know I'd never be able to find anyone to marry. I've got a lot of issues. Trust issues. I'm not easy to be with. I'm hard to love. Maybe even impossible to love."

Soul's gaze drifts out his cracked-open window. "That's not true. Nobody's impossible to love. And everyone has issues. And you know what?"

She waits for him to continue; it's been years since she's seen him so pensive.

"I don't think you have to love every part of someone to be with them. You just have to love their important parts, and the parts about themselves that _they _love." He fidgets nervously with the window button. "Like, their smile. Their laugh. How they can read for hours and hours and never get bored. How they cook your favorite meal when you're sad or sick. How they keep your company in silence when they know you don't want to talk but don't want to be alone." He wipes dust off the weatherworn dashboard, and the callouses on his hand make a faint scratching noise as they brush the dried surface. "But you don't have to love the part of them that punches you really hard in the arm when they get angry. You don't have to love how much of a sore sport they are when they lose a competition." He turns back to her. "You just have to love what you can with all you have and forget the rest."

She watches a small fog of pink roll across his cheeks, a little on the bridge of his nose. She's amazed at his sudden burst of wisdom, but on edge with the specific experiences he listed as examples. She opens her mouth to answer and then the car dips too far into a pothole and she struggles to control it as her old right front tire is torn open and part of it lays flayed like finely-shredded steak across the expanse of road they've recently left behind.

Maka gloats internally the tiniest bit at her quick reflexes and ability to pull immediately to the side of the road without either of them exiting the car with a single bruise. But she's not so sure about her Ford. It might not be built as tough as she'd originally hoped.

They both pause for a minute, gape, and assess the monumental damage the tire and the rim have taken. The loosest pieces of rust-flake on the rim drift away like deadened leaves in the tendrils of wind. She sighs and is the first to take action as she shifts through her trunk to find the crank jack and spare tire.

"Man," she groans. "I have an extra tire at home, but all I have with me now is a kind of damaged donut."

He blinks, owlish.

"Forget it. You're useless. Move aside, moron." She slides on grease-stained gardening gloves with a roll of her eyes and begins to loosen the bolts.

He grimaces as she mumbles something about motorcycles being useless, oversized scooters.

"I mean, can I at least do something?"

She rolls up her jeans to her reddened knees, gets up and rubs the sheen of sweat on her forehead with the back of her hand. "Well, just lift the tire and put it to the side for me, I guess. Will you feel manlier if you lift for me?" She bites her lip to hold back a huge laugh at his kicked-puppy expression.

He huffs and pushes her to the side, lifts the mostly-shredded remains of the tire up and tosses it out onto the dirt to their right. But not without an immense struggle.

"Somebody needs some steroids."

He crosses his arms and sits facing away from her.

"And an attitude check," she says with an unyielding, smug curve to her lips as she gets on her hands and knees to check for damage to the body of the car. She leans under the rim and inspects the entirety of the tire's rusted cavern.

Soul peeks to check on her and chokes on his own spit at the way she sticks her rump out in his direction. "Jesus Christ," he murmurs, buries his head between his knees before he gives into the urge to punch himself in the nuts for his own wandering thoughts. "Fuck."

"What are over there swearing for?"

"I'm just having an existential crisis."

She raises an eyebrow. "What's with all your big words lately?"

"Leave me alone and put your stupid donut on."

After ten minutes of silence and cranking wrench pass, he watches night-dark ashen clouds swarm in their direction. Thunder grumbles like his stomach in the distance, and he looks to Maka to see she's also gazing toward the oncoming storm with dread. Not a single car passes them on the road.

"At least the next city isn't too far," she says as she throws her gloves back into the deep abyss of her trunk. "We could really even just push the car there, since I don't really trust this replacement tire."

"Are you serious? It's at least two miles from here."

She glares. "It's safer to push at this point then lean on a tiny tire like that in a monsoon. Whatever, princess. Get in the chariot, and I'll push your fat ass there myself in it."

At that, he rises to the challenge and waits by the trunk of the car while she puts it in neutral. "Your car is the size of a boat, though. I don't get what you're so damn worried about. Why don't we just wait in it for the storm to pass? What's the rush?"

Maka ignores him and the two start to shove the car forward, just as the first few drops of rain freckle their exposed skin.

Veins of lightening throb like electrical currents through the plumes of cloud, and they are only halfway there when the worst of the shower pelts them. The dampness sinks into the dirt and causes mud to start to graze at their feet on the slanted road. She sighs and moves faster along with him, but falls on some mud and catches herself on the ground with her hands, only to slip again on the slickness of the time-eroded roads.

"Ugh," she moans as she tastes mud on the edges of her tongue and in between her teeth.

"Can we just sit in the car and wait for this to pass?" he yells over the cacophony of the summer storm.

"I don't want mud on my car floors!"

"So you'd rather stay out here? Then just get naked or something! I don't care! This is rid-"

He slides, too, and falls on his ass beside her in the rising waters mixed with mud.

"That's what you get for telling me to strip."

"Strip for your fucking good, you crazy bitch."

"Language!"

"Is this honestly a time to care about that? You should have just listened to me!"

They leer at each other for a few seconds before Soul's vision is blocked by the wet dirt she chucks at his face. He reacts in suit without thinking, and soon they are both muddier than the highway beneath them.

The storm beings to clear, the thunder fainter than footsteps and the lightening strings flash out dimmer and dimmer as the scattering clouds break free of each other.

"Someone up there is fucking with me. Or maybe it's just you."

"Shut up and help me push the car! And _language_!"

He makes sure to color every sentence uttered from his muddied lips.

The receptionist at the hotel eyes them with askance as they reach her counter, a trail of mud in their wake from what doesn't stick to their soaked skin and clothes.

"One bed, if possible, please," Soul says with a smile.

The girl winces as she notices some dirt in his serrated teeth, but drops the key on the counter without any questions. She's not even sure she wants to know. She just wants them out of her newly-refurbished lobby, fast.

Maka grabs the key and bolts for the room right down the first-floor hall. "I get the shower first!"

"Not on my watch!" He tackles her to the ground mid-gait and an unpleasant shade of brown stains the carpet beneath their mingling limbs as they roll on the floor in a drenched, tumultuous heap.

They wrestle for it before Maka bites his arm and wrenches it from him by brute force, and they both fall into the room yelling and fighting dirt-caked tooth and nail for the bathroom door.

"What was all that noise, Kim?" a young woman asks as she steps up to the counter.

The girl sighs with deep-embedded frustration as she opens the closet for the mop. "A real couple of trouble-making weirdos, that's all I know. Or lake monsters."

"There's only one way to settle this," Soul says through ragged gasps of air as they fight for the claim to the threshold.

"What is it?" she asks with breaths equally as labored, as she refuses to move her hand from the brass doorknob.

"We get in the shower together."

Her eyes widen and he sees a blush shuffle from the tips of her ears down even through the blackest of the mud on her face.

"With our clothes on, idiot." He grabs her hand and nearly throws her in as he squeaks on the hot water of the shower. He steps into the porcelain tub with her and revels in the feel of non-rainwater and grime as it dissipates from his skin and wet-heavy clothing. Value bottles of shampoo and soap never seemed like such a luxury until today.

Maka removes her hair from pigtails and loosens as much of the soil as possible from it, smiles as she watches it return to its normal ashy gold as she combs through it with her fingers. She scrubs her arms and he laughs with her as she palms a large clump off her nose.

"Here, you missed a spot," he says with a smile as he lets one side of her face lean into his hand, thumbs another big portion gently from her pale cheek.

She meets his gaze and shocks at the intensity they swap between their weary eyes. He does not move his hand from where it sits on her face, and she does not lean away from it. She finds she likes the feel even more than the cleansing power of the water as it forces its way through the old, creaky pipes in the ceiling somewhere above their heads. The heat of his skin melts into hers and she sighs with a small smile, soft and barely audible in the overwhelming rush of the shower water; a steam-cloaked murmur. Her stare shifts from his to the spiked, but bendable, tips of his hair as they adhere to his forehead. The color of his chapped lips. She follows the length of his arm right to his hand which still rests against her, and she admires the crooked grooves that stretch to every indent in his long, piano-dancer fingers.

_"I don't think you have to love every part of someone to be with them."_

But she thinks she does love every part of him. She likes how he touches her like she's made of glass even though they are both more than aware she's made of stone. She likes the shapes drawn in his palm from birth that she wishes she knew how to interpret. She finds how knife-sharp his teeth are fascinating, the ruby in his eyes exotic and unique. He walks with a purposeful slump, and stands with a slouch to his shoulders, but it makes her smile. His perpetual smirk is sometimes irritating but always sweet at the very core of it.

She thinks again of this kiss they once shared a couple of years ago, and she's surprised at her own yearning to want to relive it now as they stand in this dirty tub in the middle of nowhere.

"Maka," he says as his gaze floats slowly to the ceiling.

"What?"

"You're wearing a white shirt."

_He's also a pervert! _

She slams the bathroom door on the way out.

It's cold without the water in the whir of the air conditioning of the hotel room. Her skin chills only where his hand no longer sits.

She changes and leaves the empty room.

He stays in the warm water as long as he can.

* * *

He stuffs his hands in his pockets as he strolls through the unfamiliar and winding roads of the town, one that's significantly bigger than the last two they visited and even their hometown. He knows she's here; he can smell the trail of anger she left from miles away. But mostly he knows she's still here because her wobbly old Taurus still sits in the hotel parking lot.

He considers asking strangers if they've seen a big-booted monster stomping about when a passer-by crashes into him on the sidewalk.

A shock of blue hair startles him into instant recognition. "Black Star? You live _here _now?" Soul stares down as his friend frantically picks up a cluster of roses from the ground and shoves them into a basket. "And you're carrying flowers in a basket," he deadpans.

"What of it?" His old college roommate puffs out his chest in righteous and appropriate indignation. "I'm a flower delivery boy now."

Soul can't resist; he laughs so hard at the declaration that he simultaneously breaks into tears. "Are you _kidding _me? And you do it by foot? You're like a little nymph!"

Black Star punches him in the stomach and Soul crumples in a heap on the ground. "W-What the fuck?"

"Just proving I'm not a forest fairy," he continues as if his friend is not clenching his abdomen in pain on the warmed pavement. "Tsubaki and I run a floral business here and it adds a personal touch when the flowers get delivered by hand. So shut up, dickbag."

He crawls up off the ground and coughs a few more times before he's able to see clearly again.

"Anyway, what are you and Maka doing out here?"

"You've already met Maka?"

There's fear in his friend's eyes. "Not really. She came rushing into the shop about an hour ago. She's scary as shit when she's angry, especially at you. So I just left her to Tsubaki to handle." He shrugs.

"You're a real pussy."

"I'm not a pussy. I've still got my balls intact precisely _because _I got out of that situation fast."

Soul sighs. "Where's the shop?"

* * *

The bell clinks as he opens the glass door to Tsubaki's floral design shop. She hums at her wooden desk as she arranges some frilly, pink bouquet of flowers he's never come across his entire life. Though he supposes he hasn't left his desert town long enough to see much beyond the blossoms on cacti and the occasional tumbleweeds.

He clears his throat as he shuffles to her desk, and she piques up and smiles at him. "Afternoon, Soul. I was expecting you. How have you been?"

He smiles back at her. Even though at least a year has passed since they'd last talked, she eases right into the conversation as if they were neighbors. "Um, not counting today, pretty good. Pretty much the same. You?"

"I'm fine. Just busy with the shop, and looking after Black Star." She adds a finishing touch to the bouquet and sighs, though her smile does not cool off. "Today, looking after Maka. She's upstairs, since I'm sure you're looking for her. As always. I see why you say things are the same. Proceed with caution. And please make sure she hasn't torn any of my furniture to pieces. Or hurt herself by accident, for that matter."

He laughs, humorless, and starts up a staircase to her left with a heaving reluctance. It's like taking a voluntary step into the fires of hell as far as he's concerned. As he reaches the door at the teak landing, he hears the faint swirl of a blender at work and tries not to imagine her sticking his head into her mix. He slowly turns the knob and walks in, attempts not to drool as paces in the direction of the scent of recently heated chocolate frosting. He wonders if she just glared at the jar of it instead of using the microwave.

She pours yellow cupcake batter into a tin as he leans on the marble island between them. He can tell she's aware of his presence by the way the muscles between her shoulder blades knot.

They exchange no words as she finishes filling the polka-dotted wrappers, and still none pass between them as she slides the tin onto the wire rack of the oven and slams it shut. She punches a time into the microwave and crosses her arms on the island just a few inches away from him.

The quiet domesticity of the moment makes him smile. She always bakes when she's incensed. He remembers nights after phone calls with her father he'd wake up in the morning to find a fresh loaf of banana bread on the dining room table, or even a brownie by his bedside at three or four am. He'd toss and turn sometimes as she furiously created batter from scratch. Like she just threw herself right into the mix with the tablespoons of baking soda and flour.

He's amazed at how she creates when she wants nothing more than to destroy.

"You know what?" she asks after some heartbeats knock between them. "I really hate cupcakes."

He laughs. "Me, too."

She scrunches her nose. "They're just too sweet."

"I used to scrape the frosting off when I was little," he says. "I'd just eat the cake part."

She smiles. "Me, too. It would drive my mom nuts. I'd even do it to my birthday cakes. That really would put my parents over the edge."

He nods. He's glad she can read between his lines. She signs his treaty without him writing it. He's never learned to properly apologize, but she knows how to forgive and he loves her all the more for it.

She teaches him how to frost the cupcakes just the right amount so they won't rot his teeth.

* * *

Tsubaki invites them both to an annual kick-off-of-summer bonfire in the center of their town later that night. Citizens come out of the woodwork as they gather around the lawn of their small city hall. Soul watches for a few moments as kids play musical chairs in the distance, then turns to a beer pong tournament on the opposite end of the lawn.

Maka laughs. "What a weird town, huh?"

Tsubaki and Maka wander off together while Soul and Black Star spread out to search for the keg.

"So," Tsubaki begins, slight mischief in her cerulean stare, "are you and Soul finally…?"

Maka scoffs. "No. Never. Is that really the first thing we're going to talk about?"

"It already was when you stormed into my shop today."

The dishwater blonde has the decency to blush. "Sorry about that." She looks to her much taller friend with a sheepish grin. "Though I guess you're used to it by now. I can't believe you and Black Star own a floral shop now. I'm glad for you. Flowers have always been your thing, haven't they?"

They sit on a bench and Tsubaki's smile is teasing. "Way to switch subjects fast."

She groans. "I don't like being cornered about my lack of a love life. You know that. Anyway, we've had our moments but we're not a couple." She fingers the hem of her skirt. "We never will be. I'm too nuts to be in a relationship. And he knows how I am better than anybody, after living with me for so long."

"Are you really going to use your father as an excuse for the rest of your life?"

Maka sighs and puts her head in her hands as she stares out at a distant lake. She has flashes of purple hair again, too-long nails sinking into skin. She thinks of her mother packing her suitcase without a word to either of them, without a single tear; her mother who remains the only one to leave Death City and is probably all the better off for it. And her father, who spends his weekends off bumming the next city's exotic dance joints then asks her why she's always so sour with him. She doesn't want to recreate that life.

But she doesn't want to imagine being alone, either.

"I don't know," she answers honestly.

"What do you mean by moments?" Tsubaki asks as she leans onto the splintering back of the bench.

"Nothing."

"Come on."

"We only kissed one time! And it was just a heat of the moment thing. It was never serious. At least, probably not for him. Wasn't for me, either. I… don't feel for him like that. I n-never have."

Her friend squeals and grabs Maka's hands. "What? I really missed our girl talks! This is so fun. Was it good?"

"How are you and Black Star?"

That silences her for a moment. "Fine."

"I noticed you only had one bed in that upstairs apartment."

Tsubaki frowns, and Maka's guilt surges from her stomach and spreads like a chill even on the warm night. "I still haven't told him."

"What? Tsubaki, you should!"

"You're one to talk." She smiles again, weaker this time.

"I told you, I don't-"

"Excuse me, lightweight!" Black Star rushes over to them and points at Maka with a large smirk. "I think you still owe me a rematch of beer pong!"

"I do not. I hate that game."

He grabs her hand and drags her unwillingly toward the crowded tables. "You'll like it after a few rounds!"

Soul takes Maka's place by Tsubaki with a faint smile. "I'm very glad Black Star still considers Maka his fiercest competitor, otherwise that'd be me." He takes a sip of his beer, and offers her one. She shakes her head.

"I'm more of a tequila person."

He sticks out his tongue. "You're the only one I know."

They sit in quiet for a while. It's not awkward, just filled with unanswered questions that neither dare to ask.

"Will you ever tell her, Soul?"

He rests his beer in his lap. "What?"

"Tell Maka how you feel."

He looks toward the same lake Maka had earlier with a concerned frown. "I'm afraid to. She told me earlier she thinks she can't be loved and I think that logic of hers is set in stone. She's said it over and over again when I've breached the subject for years. Since high school." He plays with his bottle cap before flicking it into the nearby trash can. "And she's smart, but not exactly with these matters. I've done everything _but _confess at this point and she's never gotten it." He smiles. "The one thing about me I wish she would get."

She pats his closest hand in sympathy. "I can relate."

He takes another swig of his drink. "We picked a couple of real boneheads, didn't we?"

* * *

"Maka?" He crouches down to where she lies on the lawn.

Her jade eyes look heavy as she stares at the sky, as if they're trying to take in every star at the same time. "Mm."

"How many rounds of beer pong did you end up playing with Black Star?" He holds in a laugh as her glassy eyes roll in his direction and she has a smug grin.

"At least five. And I won all of them."

"Did you?"

"Actually, I don't remember. But if he doesn't either, then I'm gonna say I won. Will you say it, too?"

"Of course."

She reaches a fist up toward him.

"What are you doing?" He can't stop his laughter this time.

"Come on!" she yells, weak. "Bump it!" She shakes it toward him with a whine. "Bump it, I'm a champion. If you don't bump it, it means I didn't win."

He grabs it instead and throws her like a bag of sand over his shoulder and she groans. "Watch it," she murmurs. "My stomach's not so good. Beer makes me bloated. I hate beer."

He starts the long walk toward the hotel, ignores the looks of some of the more sober townspeople. "Why'd you drink so much, then?"

"Because I needed to win. And I did. All seven rounds."

She hushes after that, and he quiets down as well as they reach their hotel room door. He places her down gently but she still wobbles, like she's trying to run on a replacement tire just as her car is. He smiles and sits her on the seat of the toilet while he fills her a glass with tapwater and makes her drink it.

He crouches down to her level, a hand on her knee as he takes the glass with his other and places it on the counter. "You okay?"

She nods, and tries to pry her eyes open repeatedly. She gives in, and leans her head on top of his with a soft sigh.

"I forgot how quiet you get when you're drunk."

She just nods again as he tucks her into bed beside him, wakes up every hour or so through the night to ensure she stays sleeping on her side.

"Soul," she murmurs once as she wraps her arms around him and nestles her head in his chest. "I think I'm gonna help Tsubaki confess to Black Star. If you have love you gotta say it."

He laughs again and pats her head as he returns the embrace as best he can. "Okay. Sounds like a good plan."

"I believe in love. You make me believe in it."

He's not sure what to say to that. She'd never say it without the influence of alcohol in her system, and he's certain she'll forget it ever left her mouth. He strokes her back while she fights sleep. "I'm glad."

He wants to ask her to remember. He wants to ask her to make sure she says that to him again in the morning. He wants to write it in her notebook. He wants to make it permanent.

But he lets it slip out of the open window.

* * *

_{I don't wanna be a big man  
I just wanna fight like everyone else_


End file.
